Volvo Trucks Outlines EPA ’07 Compliance Strategy

GOTHENBERG, Sweden (Oct 15, 2004) — Volvo Trucks Inc. has announced that its North American division will go with cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), coupled with a diesel particulate filter (DPF) to meet EPA’s stringent 2007 diesel emissions standards. At a press conference in Gothenberg, Anthony Greszler, VP, engine engineering for Volvo Trucks North America (VTNA), said the combination of high efficiency cooled EGR and the DPF will provide the emissions reductions needed to achieve compliance with the EPA’s ’07 standard of 1.5 grams oxides of nitrogen (NOx) per bhp/hr, and .02 grams particulate matter (PM) per bhp/hr.

“We would have preferred to follow our European strategy of using Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) using urea injection to reduce NOx while treating the PM challenge in the cylinder, and burning the soot in the combustion process,” he says. “But EPA still has reservations about urea injection.”

VTNA currently has about 35 ’07-compliant trucks running in North America, and plans to have about 20 more up and running in the near future.

All Volvo trucks other then North American models, will use SCR to meet the next round of European emissions reductions, with the possible implementation of some advanced combustion technology to further clean the exhaust prior to the SCR/urea injection process.